“Hey,” she said back, and took a small step toward the bed, hoping he wouldn’t notice the lump in the seat of her shorts.

“Come here, you,” Jett said, and patted the empty space next to him. She went over and he was immediately on her, kissing her. “Are you ready?” he asked, gesturing to the sad bulge in his pants.

“I won’t go all the way,” Roni said, “but I can use my hands.”

Within seconds he’d pulled his pants down to his knees. Roni tried not to appear disgusted. She focused her mind on Mr. Kaplan’s underwear—her victory prize. After a series of awkward maneuvers, she began to inflict on Jett what she hoped would be the coldest, driest hand job of his life. After a few disturbing moments, the thing had gone nearly limp inside her hands. Naked mole rat, she thought. Baby naked mole rat.

“Why isn’t anything happening?” she asked, playing dumb.

“Can you spit on it maybe? That would help.”

“You spit on it,” she told him. “It’s your penis.”

He shrugged, as if seeing her point. He grabbed her hand and hawked a wad of spit onto her palm.

Even the neighbors must have heard her scream. “Pig!” she cried. “American pig!” She was about to wipe the spit onto the bed, but before she could execute the move, Jett’s father burst through the door.

For a moment, Mr. Kaplan stood in the doorway, examining the tableau before him. Jett’s pants were still half off and Roni’s hand was clenched around the wad of saliva. Mr. Kaplan looked at Jett and then looked down at his own feet. “I always figured your mother would deal with this kind of thing.”

Roni rushed to her feet, and it was then that the underwear fell from her shorts. They lay on the floor like a landmine, daring for someone to move.

“What is that?” Jett asked, pointing to the heap of fabric.

Jett’s father stooped down and plucked the garment from the earth. He rubbed the cotton between his fingers. Only now did Roni see the little white bow—a feminine bow—stitched to the waistband.

“I think it’s time you go home,” Mr. Kaplan said.

* * *

Jett sat with Roni while they waited for her mother to arrive. His father had gone straight to the kitchen, where he was now reheating leftover beans and weenies on the stove. He often did this—had a second go at dinner rather than expend the effort of making dessert. It was Jett’s mother who had so thoroughly covered sundaes with chopped walnuts, sliced strawberries, and caramel syrup that you could no longer tell what flavor ice cream you were eating. Jett watched from the couch in the living room as his father absentmindedly stirred the corpse of their dinner, trying to revive it.

“Hey,” Roni said, placing a warm hand on Jett’s knee. She would not meet his eyes. “I don’t know if I ever told you, but I’m really sorry about your mom.”